Tuesday, February 21, 2012

a corner turned

HALLELUJAH! Palmer ate something besides baby food, Cheerios, and Gerber cookies! Lately I have been having a tough time convincing him of what the doctor told me, that he should be getting most of his non-milk calories from self-feeding finger foods. HA! Palmer just happens to love being fed baby food by the spoonful, and just happens to HATE picking up anything besides crunchy snacks with his fingers.

We've tried cooked peas, carrots, potatoes, pieces of banana, and blueberries to no avail. There was a short phase in which he would eat meat in the form of sausage, meatballs, and meatloaf but that was hit or miss. The boy has always loved crackers, cookies, bread, and pizza, but apparently kids need nutrition to grow. (?) When it was time for our vacation to Hawaii, I was getting a little frustrated, and tired of all the rejected mushy food cubes I was picking up off the floor around the high chair. I decided to give Palmer what he truly wanted on vacation- good old pureed baby food.

Ready to get back to work on our solid food-therapy, I've reintroduced a couple foods with little success. Mostly yucky faces and splats on the floor. Imagine my surprise yesterday, when I offered him some of my scrambled eggs (with green onion and cheese), and he picked it up! Then he put it in his mouth and didn't spit it out. Woah! Of course he enjoyed a little toast with his eggs- no surprise there. I ended up scrambling another egg to keep up with the demand!

This turned out not to be a fluke occurrence, since he enthusiastically enjoyed a few blueberries, some baked chicken leg, and a creamy stelline pasta side dish for dinner. Yay, Palmer!!! As we speak, he is mangling an innocent banana- but some of it is making it into his mouth :)

Sunday, February 19, 2012

birthday baby

A few weeks ago, Palmer celebrated his very first birthday! We had a party with family, ate tacos, and watched Palmer open all his cool presents. He wasn't that into eating the cake his mother slaved away on, but that's ok :) If you are wondering how I came up with the design (which I did not)- check out Wilton's website! They have a HUGE variety of shaped cake pans that come with a picture to guide you in decorating them. There is a list of icing colors on the paper so you know which food coloring to use. My mom always did cakes like this for us when we were little, so I thought I would pass on the love!

This cake was definitely a labor of love as it was mixed and baked TWICE. The first round I used a complex homemade chocolate cake recipe with special cocoa and everything. Apparently the recipe I used was slightly larger than a boxed cake mix, because the cake bubbled completely out of the dino pan and into the bottom of my oven! I thought I could save it by scraping the batter even with the pan and continuing to bake it, but it crumbled to pieces when I took it out of the pan later. Thank goodness my mom came over that afternoon to help. She scraped burned cake lava out of the oven while I washed the pan and made a whole new cake (this time, out of a box). At least I still did the buttercream myself!

Michaels and Hobby Lobby sell Wilton cake decorating supplies if you want to give it a shot! There are bags, tips, couplers, gels, drops, and a bazillion other accessories perfect for building a big collection :) Here is big boy Palmer riding on his new toy from Uncle Nathan. . .